Juggling. Speed reading. Underwater basket weaving. What do all these have in common? They're all talents, of course! Well, I'm not sure about the last one, but you get the idea.

God has given each person incredible talents, and He wants us to use them. The talents I just mentioned are trivial compared to the spiritual gifts that God has promised to us, but every talent we have is supposed to be used to give glory to God and to build up the body of Christ.

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." - Ephesians 3:20-21

This declaration was made by Paul after describing how he was made a minister to the Gentiles according to God's power, in order that God would be glorified in Christ and in the church. He talks about the special, spiritual gifts God gave him to accomplish this purpose. You have likewise been given talents by God to bring him Glory.

In this episode we are looking at the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), and in it we see three men given gifts by God. One is given five talents (an ancient unit of money), one of them two, and one of them a single talent. These three men were to invest these talents in different business ventures so that when their master returned, he might say "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much." The first two were faithful with their talents and pleased their master. The third was unfaithful, and whined that the master had not given him enough to work with, but this was far from the truth, as a talent was worth twenty years worth of labor.

This is the meaning for us today: do not waste your talents. God will not be pleased if we are apathetic towards the gifts He generously gives us. You have special talents that God wants to use to build His kingdom, so this is your moment to stand up and accept the fact that you are talented by God and you are going to honor Him with your talents.

"For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness." - Romans 12:4-8

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